National Post (National Edition)
HAUNTING SEASON FOR SENATORS.
OWNER’S PRE-SEASON COMMENTS HAVE HAUNTED TEAM
Eugene Melnyk, resplendent in his Ottawa Senators jersey, felt good about the season ahead.
“I think we are looking forward to a great, great coming year,” the team owner said. He also said of his players: “I think we can gel them into a very, very serious team.” This was five months ago. The Senators are not exactly having a great year.
They have won 22 of 59 games, and sit 31st in the 31-team NHL.
Those comments from Melnyk came in the infamous hype-reel video that was released in September, before training camp began.
Though the owner’s statement that his team was “kind of in the dumpster” was the quote that elevated the whole thing to legendary status, the full interview, which seemed plenty ill-conceived then, is even more so when viewed today. The point of the video, which came as part of a media and advertising offensive in the Ottawa market, was to sell the local fan base on the merits of a youth movement.
Yes, the team had been to a conference final just a year earlier, but they were signalling no such aspirations back in the fall.
They were going with the kids. Melnyk, who ostensibly was being interviewed by Sens defenceman Mark Borowiecki but did most of the talking himself, spoke about the team having 10 rookies this season. (Even allowing for a generous definition of the term, they ended up with half that number.)
But, indeed, they went with the kids. A few days after the interview was released, the Senators shipped off Erik Karlsson, the best player in their history, for prospects and picks, and with less than a week before the trade deadline they are now expected to move at least one of their two leading scorers, Mark Stone and Matt Duchene, and possibly both of them.
Trading either of the pending free agents would seem like a surefire way to lock themselves into a position at the bottom of the league standings, which would make sense for a rebuilding team, but for the pesky fact that the Sens traded their firstround pick for Duchene just last season. Oh, and waiting for the team that wins the draft lottery is American teenager Jack Hughes, who is projected to be a franchise centre. With every game the Senators lose from here on out, they increase the chances that they will deliver Hughes to the Colorado Avalanche on the back end of that Duchene deal.
Back to the Melnyk video from September: “I think this year is going to become one of those watershed years for us.”
Perhaps it will, but not in the way he was thinking.
It takes some doing to be the most poorly run of the Canadian NHL franchises in a world in which the Edmonton Oilers also exist, but the Sens are making a fine run at pulling it off.
To be charitable for a minute, Ottawa does have a good pool of young play- ers and prospects: Thomas Chabot, Brady Tkachuk, Colin White, Maxime Lajoie at the NHL level, plus others in the pipeline.
But the Duchene trade, it haunts. In addition to the 2019 first-rounder, the Sens gave up a 2019 third-round pick, and Shane Bowers, who was their first-round pick in 2017.
He played on Canada’s World Junior team, went back to the NCAA, and could be playing for Colorado by next season. (They also traded forward Kyle Turris in the deal when they couldn’t agree on a new contract with him; he quickly signed longterm with Nashville.)
Duchene is an elite player himself, a top-line centre who is averaging better than a point per game on a lastplace team. But you trade picks and prospects for a guy like that when you intend to be competitive, and you make sure you have him as part of your long-term plans.
What you absolutely do not do is acquire the firstline centre at the cost of a bunch of young talent, then move on from him a year later. Which is what the Sens are now expected to do.
In just the past few months, Ottawa has traded Mike Hoffman, for awkward off-ice reasons relating to Karlsson, and then traded Karlsson anyway. Hoffman has 26 goals for the Florida Panthers; Mikkel Boedker, acquired by Ottawa in the Hoffman deal, has six for the Senators. Now they stand to lose Duchene, for whom they mortgaged the future, in hopes of building for the future. And possibly Stone, unless he decides he wants to be a part of all that for some years to come.
Given the track record, that would be a risky bet.
And, as the capper to all that has happened with the team itself, the owner is engaged in warring lawsuits with the main partner with whom he was supposed to build a new downtown arena that was thought to be key to the team’s long-term future.
That process could become officially dead as soon as the mediation clock runs out next week, just a few days after the trade deadline.
This reminds me of one last quote from Mark Awkwardly Interviews Eugene, when the owner was talking about how he thought Sens fans were really excited about the team’s new direction. “We gotta give them the hope that they know that we know what we are doing,” he said.
I do not imagine many Sens fans hope that, presently.
THIS ... IS GOING TO BECOME ONE OF THOSE WATERSHED YEARS.